Doreen Thomas owns Violet and Mae Flower Farm in Lachine and Classic Designs by Doreen Thomas. She also makes gift baskets for Thunder Bay Winery and her flower arrangements are available at Rusty Petunias in downtown Alpena. She has a shop at 106 Water Street in Alpena, open by appointment.

Her passion for flowers has blossomed into a lifestyle full of fun and surprises.

“I strive for the high-end flowers,” Thomas said. “The dahlias, the peonies. I have over 130 bushes of peonies.”

As a florist, Thomas has always enjoyed blooms of every color, but she found it was difficult to get them shipped up here without being damaged.

are fresh-cut peonies from Violet and Mae Flower Farm. Below is a sampling of colorful flowers grown on the Lachine farm.

“Because of where we live up north, the flowers, when they come in on a truck, are really beaten up,” Thomas explained. “A lot of the delicate ones are really beaten up, or they’re splashed with water and you get rust on them.”

She prides herself in her floral design, and she wanted to offer her clients the best flowers she could find. She has been a florist for 20 years.

“It was always a crapshoot, and I thought, ‘You know, there’s got to be a better way to get premium flowers’,” Thomas said.

So she decided about three years ago to start growing her own to use in her arrangements and bouquets, and offer them to the Alpena area.

“I’ve always grown flowers, but never for a reason other than my enjoyment,” Thomas said. “So once I started growing flowers, I thought about what else I could grow that would benefit what I’m doing. So then I dove into growing dahlias. Well, they’re a whole different beast on their own. They’re very delicate, they can take zero frost, they have to be started with almost zero water.”

Doreen Thomas crouches to cut bright yellow daffodils at her farm.

She explained that every type of flower is very different, and requires unique and particular conditions to survive and thrive.

“You’ve really got to know your stuff,” said Thomas, who is a certified florist, receiving her formal training through Michigan State University. “You have to know the rules before you can break them.”

She said there is usually a trial and error period when starting to grow a new type of flower, but she loves the adventure of it all. If she sees a flower she likes, she just goes for it.

“There were a couple mistakes and a couple errors, but truly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,” Thomas said. “So from there, it’s just kind of snowballed into this whole flower farming thing.”

And flower farming is a year-round effort. She planted 4,000 tulip bulbs in October, and is looking forward to seeing them bloom later this month. She has no idea exactly how many seeds and bulbs she has planted, but there are thousands, in about 50 different types of flowers.

“It’s kind of an addiction,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Ooh, I like that. I want to grow that.’ But I’m not gonna grow five. I’m gonna grow 100 of those!”

She said she’s the kind of person who gets excited and sometimes goes overboard with her creative ideas, but this flower farming is really her passion.

“Sometimes I don’t know when to say ‘When’,” she said with a laugh.

She added that even though she has a full-time job in accounting at Community Mental Health, she really looks forward to coming home and growing her flowers. It’s her creative outlet.

Different types of flowers bloom at different times of the year, so that factors into her farming techniques, as well as selecting the flowers that go well together each season.

Tulips that were planted back in October are getting ready to bloom.

“So for spring, you’re going to want daffodils and tulips and anemones and ranunculus,” Thomas noted. “And then hopefully your spiraeas are blooming too, for some kind of greenery. So it’s a real juggling act, basically.”

She said fall is a little bit easier to know which flowers will be blooming at the same time, with many of the oranges and yellows and jewel tones in bloom.

“It’s a real balancing act. It’s not that easy,” she added. “People think you just stick them in the ground and they grow.”

Growing flowers takes a lot of planning and patience.

“When you put in a bare root, it’s three years before you can cut anything,” Thomas said, referring to her peony bushes. “So, it’s an investment.”

Alanna Thomas, daughter-in-law of Doreen Thomas, holds a bouquet by Classic Designs by Doreen Thomas.

She keeps track of when she planted all her seeds, how many germinated, how old each bush is, which color is planted where, and much more.

Her peonies come in many colors — white, blush, soft pink, dark pink, and even corals.

“And the corals stink so bad,” she said with a laugh, “but they’re so beautiful.”

She uses organic fertilizers ­– leaves that she composts down, fish emulsion (which smells awful) and kelp.

Flower growers grow taller flowers than what the average gardener would grow at home, Thomas said, because the length allows for more flexibility in floral arrangements.

She said growing all these flowers takes a lot of creativity, patience and determination, but she loves doing it all.

“It’s a blast, and it’s a challenge,” she said. “It’s just amazing once you delve into it.”

She noted that some hearty annuals are already in the ground by April, because they can take a light frost. While some flowers, like daffodils, hellebores, and hyacinths, are blooming now, most others will peek out later in May.

Once the garden is in full bloom, Thomas plans to hold workshops at her shop on Water Street. In the past, she has done floral arrangement workshops and wreath-making workshops.

Mother’s Day bouquets are available now at Rusty Petunias Marketplace LLC.

Thomas also offers seasonal bouquet subscriptions. The $50 subscription includes four fresh bouquets, one every other week, for four weeks of spring flowers.

She also makes metal hanging holders for little green air plants, which look like grassy puffballs, that just pop into the holder and float with no maintenance.

She is a member of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.

“I love to grow things, and I love to share,” she added. “When you’re a creative person, your path is never straight. … You just have to go where it takes you.”

Contact Thomas at dmnthomas@hotmail.com, 989-657-5345, or on Facebook at “Classic Designs by Doreen Thomas CF.”

A pink dahlia blooms at Violet and Mae Flower Farm.

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